Memories… old and new

It has been 5 years yesterday that I came to “Scotch-land”… 5 years back, I wrapped up our life in Bangalore with the help of my mom and came here to join K. 5 years in a country which we now call home.

In these 5 years, we have made new friends, had S, (I) went back to Uni to do my Masters, achieved new heights in our individual work places, bought our first home together… all hunky-dory … well almost.. except for this bloody weather

I think I have lost count of the number of times I have told K why his company couldn’t send him to some warm place like perhaps the Carribeans, Hawaii, Cuba than here… I can almost see myself lying on a beach getting a tan……. But on second thoughts, the amount of weight I have gained in the past years, I think I am glad I am not on a beach in a miniscule swim suit anyways … Well at least now I am covered in 3 layers of clothing 9 months of a year and can pretend its all wool and not adipose tissue in my midsection… But with the winter, comes the numerous rounds of colds and coughs… as of now, its Round 1 in K household… K and S are down with a bad case of cold and are bundled together off sick from work / school and watching TV …

With the winter approaching the NHS, has also warned about the Swine Flu outbreak again and one of the amusing mails related to that said…

200 people get swine flu and whole world wants to wear surgical mask,
20 million people have AIDS and nobody wants to wear a CONDOM
… Crazy world

Thank God its FRIDAY!!!! or is it??

… and as a diligent employee I have put in my 100% at work …

100% at work

So what are your plans for the weekend? Mine will pass as most of the weekends pass especially with the onset of winter – cleaning the house, weekly shopping, ironing the “mountain” of clothes and spending time with S.

Oh and not to forget meeting our friends on sat evening for a birthday dinner. We have a group of 10 Indian families who meet up mostly every weekend once, if not more to celebrate something. If you read my earlier sentence, you may have already started doing the arithmetic in your head – 10 families, each of a husband, wife and a kid – so with 3 birthdays and 1 anniversary between them that makes it 40 bdays and anniversaries together. That leaves us with 12 weekends. Being the true Indian we are at heart, we then go to celebrate Holi, Diwali, Duherra, Easter,Christmas, Eid and most year valentine day together as well. With that we have 5 weekends left out of which 4 goes for the annual family vacation. THE 1 precious weekend left is most often taken up by some special occasion like a new job / a new baby / permanent residency/ new house etc etc. Boy!! am I glad to be back to work on a monday!!!

This has been an issue with K and me for some time now and we honestly dont know if there is any solution. Since most of the other wives dont work they don’t mind having the weekends busy. But with us, end up sorting out important family matters over MSN or emails from work.

Our friends are extremely nice people and S loves to play with all the other kids who are all of the same age. S and 2 of the girls went to the same childcare till last month and will go to the same primary school from next year. Living in a country where its winter almost 9 months of a year, we do need people around to spent time and come out of hibernation. At the same time, I miss not able to cuddle up on the sofa and catch the latest flick with K on a saturday evening.

Sigh!!! Any one know how to increase the no of hours in a day??? Or better still, is there a way I could perhaps have the ability to do 2 dissimilar things at the same time – like enjoying a meal with good friends as well cuddling up and catching the latest movie???

The dilemma…

I had this post in one of my blogger accounts which i hardly updated. However, this is a true slice of my life and since I am determined to update this blog, I thought of transferring this one here… so ready on…
————————————————————————————-

“But Mommy!!! When you were a little baby.. you also lost your hairband!!!”

This was my 3 now 4 year old’s answer when I scolded her today about losing her hairband at school on Friday. I blinked twice with my jaws very dangerously hanging near the floor… Was S really just 3??? Oh ok… she is close to 4 … but sometimes I feel she is close to 30…

“… I will ask Mamma… ” [She calls my mom Mamma]

Oh !!! there comes the emotional blackmail again… Well, with all due respect I have to admit that S has a point… I did lose quite a lot of things, not just my hairband, when I was a young girl… But that doesn’t make it acceptable, does it?

Thankfully, one look at the clock prevented me from replying back to her… But it has really got me thinking about the politically correct answer to her innocent question… Should I have replied that I never lost anything and took care of my things?? This would have been a blatant lie since even to date I can manage to be quite clumsy and lose stuff… This would look like it was ok to lie just because you are an adult and should live life by the rules… Or should I have told her the truth that yes, Mommy lost her hairbands (and various other things) when in school… This would highlight that it doesn’t matter what mistake u commit as long as you are brave enough to accept it. On the other hand, is it also demonstrating that its ok to be careless???

Each day is such a challenge teaching the rights and wrongs of life to little S when have I really learnt all the things myself yet?? I was so baffled with this, I had to make a SOS call to my mentor – who other than my mom and S’s Mamma… Ma always had the right answer.. but doesn’t she always … so the verdict… ??? .. Chill .. she is just 3 … and get back to work !!! ha, i knew Ma can always turn my problems to petty hiccups… .

Sleeping alone…

With the global recession and the housing market crashing, we as first time buyers were the lucky ones who bought a house at the right time, when the house prices had already crashed but the BoE (Bank of England) hadn’t reduced the interest rates so the banks were asking for a very reasonable downpayment. So as the saying goes, hit the iron when its hot, and we moved into our new house last November.

S had already outgrown her cot and we had to to buy the toddler bed. However, apart from a few, most of our furnitures took almost 6-7 months to be delivered. We defered buying the bed till all the furnitures were in. I should mention that our house has 2 bedrooms but most of year we have either my mom or my parent in law with us so using the 2nd bedroom for S would have been a very temporary thing and she would end sleeping with us most of times. We needed a more permanent solution and decided to have her toddler bed in our bedroom. Our bedroom is in split levels so we could put her toddler bed on the upper level where she gets a feeling of sleeping on her own while all the time close to us.

Decision made, we went shopping and came home with a lovely bed which is expandable so the life usage will be more than couple of years. S was very excited about her new bed. As bed time came, she went off to sleep on her new bed with at least 10 differnt toys – cos she couldn’t decide which one of them were her favourite – and was fast asleep in a matter of seconds. It was me who had a terrible night and didn’t get any sleep at all that night. In all of her 3 years and 11 months, never have I slept without her beside me. From the day she was born till we moved to this house, we had her cot attached to our bed. So although she was on her cot, I just had to reach over to touch and feel her presence. The last 10 months, she has been sleeping on the same bed and I had grown so used to having her arms wrapped around my neck. I felt so betrayed that she forgot about me and slept peacefully on her bed. I actually cried and K laughed. He asked me what I would do when S went off to university!!! Thank god there is more than a decade for that to happen….

S's bed

PS. The next day the bed had lost its charm and wanted to sleep along with us!!!

Post Birthday Woes

So… the big day dawned with all the adults hollering singing the birthday song for S. She went to her preschool dressed in a lovely dress and baked a birthday cake there with the help of her teacher. Sigh!! Since when has birthdays become so fun?? Didnt we just get to dress in “coloured” clothes and distribute sweeties at school when we were young?? The day passed off pretty well with her in the soft play area in the afternoon and friends for dinner.

And then it was the next morning with the birthday over…. Although it was quite sunny outside, there was an eerie gloom indoors… As predicted, the water works didnt take too long to start… S hated the “morning-after” with a vengence… She refused to get ready for school, even refused to brush her teeth… I rushed out to work knowing I wouldn’t be able to win the battle and K continued to cajole her to get up… 10 minutes later K called up to say the S wouldn’t got to preschool and in the next 5 minutes I get another call saying she was all ready to leave… Sigh! Sigh!

By evening things were back as normal!!! I knew there were more advantages to working full time! We have arranged her birthday party this weekend… As of now I am just bracing myself for a repeat performance of yesterday… but then again maybe not cos she might be too busy with all the gifts to notice…

Its that time of the year again…

I have been a blog stalker for quite some time and have been following quite a few blogs like Asaan and Weaving A Web amongst others for quite sometime. The thought to pen down has been been there but the motivation to really start jotting down my thoughts was lacking. I finally took the plunge today. Today is very special. It is the day before my little baby S turns 4. Her impeding birthday has been the central topic of conversation since the last few weeks in the K household. While I am still dazed that my baby is going to be 4, S is busy negotiating for her presents. After a lot of thought, all she has come up with is… “I want a giant YoYo!!” This may seem quite inexpensive but K’s on a mission to find the perfect YoYo for his daughter!!! Sigh! and I thought buying a X-Box or PSP.